11 The Brighter Buccaneer

Philip Carney had fallen on his knees beside Runce, and was loosening the man's collar. He turned round and yapped the denial indignantly enough; but Peter saw that his face had gone pale.

'I was standing beside Mr. Runce.' Carney pointed to the Saint. 'That man snatched the pendant, and Mr. Runce tried to stop him getting away.'

'Why weren't you here, Watkins?' wailed Mrs. Dempster-Craven, shaking the detective wildly by the arm. 'Why weren't you watching? I shall never see my diamond again --'

'I'm sorry, madam,' said the detective. 'I just left the room for one minute to find a glass of water. But I think we've got the man all right.' He bent down and hauled the Saint to his feet. 'We'd better search this fellow, and one of the footmen can go for the police while we're doing it.'

Peter saw that the Saint's face had gone hard as polished teak. In Simon's right hand was the Star of Mandalay, pressed against his jaw as he was holding it. As soon as the lights had gone out he had guessed what was going to happen: he had crossed the floor like a cat, grasped it neatly as Runce tore it out of its setting, and sent the big man flying with one well-directed left. All that he had been prepared for; but there were wheels turning that he had never reckoned with.

He looked the detective in the eyes.

'The less you talk about the police the better,' he said quietly. 'I was in the conservatory a few minutes ago, and I happened to hear Mr. Carney say: 'I'd better see Watkins and make sure he's ready to fix those lights.' I didn't think any­thing of it at the time, but this looks like an explanation.'

There was an instant's deadly silence; and then Philip Car­ney laughed.

'That's one of the cleverest tricks I've ever heard of,' he remarked. 'But it's a bit libellous, isn't it?'

'Not very,' said a girl's clear voice.

Again the murmur of talk was stifled as if a blanket had been dropped on it; and in the hush Kate Allfield came into the front of the crowd. George Runce was rising on his elbows, and his jaw dropped as he heard her voice. She gave him one contemptuous glance, and faced Mrs. Dempster-Craven with her head erect.

'It's perfectly true,' she said. 'I was with Mr. Templar in the conservatory, and I heard it as well.'

Carney's face had gone grey.

'The girl's raving,' he said; but his voice was a little shaky. 'I haven't been in the conservatory this evening.'

'Neither have I,' said Runce, wiping the frozen incredulity off his features with an effort. 'I'll tell you what it is --'

But he did not tell them what it was, for at this point a fresh authoritative voice interrupted the debate with a curt 'Make way, please,' and the crowd opened to let through the burly figure of a detective-sergeant in plain clothes. Simon looked round, and saw that he had posted a constable at the door as he came in. The sergeant scanned the faces of the group, and addressed Mrs. Dempster-Craven.

'What's the trouble?'

'My pendant --'

She was helped out by a chorus of bystanders whose in­formation, taken in the mass, was somewhat confusing. The sergeant sorted it out phlegmatically; and at the end he shrugged.

'Since these gentlemen are all accusing each other, I take it you don't wish to make any particular charges?'

'I cannot accuse my guests of being thieves,' said Mrs. Dempster-Craven imperially. 'I only want my diamond.'

The sergeant nodded. He had spent twelve years in C Divi­sion, and had learned that Berkeley Square is a region where even policemen have to be tactful.

'In that case,' he said, 'I think it would help us if the gentlemen agreed to be searched.'

The Saint straightened up.

It had been a good evening; and he had no regrets. The game was worth playing for its own sake, to him: the prizes came welcomely, but they weren't everything. And no one knew better than he that you couldn't win all the time. There were chances that couldn't be reckoned with in advance; and the duplicity of Mr. Watkins was one of those. But for that, he would have played his hand faultlessly, out-bluffed and out­manoeuvred the Carney-Runce combination in a fair field, and made as clean a job of it as anything else he had done. But that single unexpected factor had turned the scale just enough to bring the bluff to a showdown, as unexpected factors always would. And yet Peter Quentin saw the Saint was smiling.

'I think that's a good idea,' said the Saint.

Between Philip Carney and George Runce flashed one blank glance; but their mouths remained closed.

'Perhaps there's another room we could go to,' said the sergeant, almost genially; and Mrs. Dempster-Craven inclined her head like a queen dismissing a distasteful odour.

'Watkins will show you to the library.'

Simon turned on his heel and led the way towards the door, with Mr. Watkins still gripping his arms; but as his path brought him level with Kate Allfield he stopped and smiled down at her.

'I think you're a great gal.'

His voice sounded a trifle strange. And then, before two hundred shocked and startled eyes, including those of Lord and Lady Bredon, the Honourable Celia Mallard, three baron­ets, and the aspiring Mrs. Dempster-Craven herself, he laid his hands gently on her shoulders and kissed her outrageously on the mouth; and in the silence of appalled aristocracy which followed that performance made his stately exit.

'How the devil did you get away with it?' asked Peter Quentin weakly, as they drove away in a taxi an hour later. 'I was fairly sweating blood all the time you were being stripped.'